So, Who’s Getting Fired for This? Accidentally texting war plans to a journalist is clear cause for dismissal.

It is worth noting that a key reason to oppose Pete Hegseth for the role of Secretary of Defense was a history of questionable decision making regarding alcohol and women, and now we add this.

There is also a security detail of his that was two attractive blondes. Now yes, this could be coincidence, but given his history of real and alleged womanizing, maybe send a note to the security officer "please make sure the choices for my security detail are random"?

I don't like to say this, but with this, the punitive tariffs and trade wars, and more, it's amateur hour in the White House. Not a good thing for the country or the world.

It is amateur hour. You have a populace president, with an amateur leadership team, driving an agenda from a base that is angry and wants a drastic change. The problem is that plan, if carried out haphazardly, is going to create real problems for that base. I am hoping that stagflation does not set in, which is starting to look a bit more likely right now.

When you do things, you make mistakes. Everyone does, including all of us.

"When you do things, you make mistakes. Everyone does, including all of us."

The irony is that Trump campaigned in 2016 on the idea that Clinton should have been locked up for her use of a private email server. Hegsworth, said during the campaign on FoxNews that,

“Any security professional, military, government or otherwise, would be fired on the spot for this type of conduct and criminally prosecuted for being so reckless with this kind of information,”

and

“If it was anyone other than Hillary Clinton, they would be in jail right now,”

and

“The fact that she wouldn't be held accountable for this, I think, blows the mind of anyone who's held our nation's secrets dear,”

of course, it is okay for Trump if his team is conducting classified activities on an app from the Apple Store, just not Clinton.

I'm not a Trump fan, as most of you are aware. Therefore, it may come as a surprise that I'm actually not too concerned by "Signalgate." First, classified information was not disclosed (at least, that is what we're told). Second, what was said about Europe is consistent with public messaging from the Trump administration. So, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that members of Trump's admin called Europe "freeloaders."

We will have to see whether classified information was or was not disclosed. Hegsworth says no, everyone on the chat has deferred to Hegsworth, without saying yes or no, and the reporter from the Atlantic, says Hegsworth is lying and that specific information such as targets were discussed, that former security and defense officials have stated would clearly have been considered classified.

From my understanding of security requirements, just using a non-secure channel for such discussion is probably illegal.

In any case, it is rank hypocrisy and we'd better not hear any more about crooked Hillary from the MAGA types.

In any case, it is rank hypocrisy...

Hypocrisy is the warp and woof of politics.

"Hypocrisy is the warp and woof of politics."

I agree, this one is so stark, from it being the cornerstone of his first term campaign with the slogan "lock her up!", to now the same issue being "nothing".

We can quibble over whether it's actually "classified" until the cows come home, but our ancestors in WW2 had a good way of determining how they would, or would not, discuss a matter. If it had to do with when and how an attack was to be made, they would realize that releasing this information could get "boys" killed, and they would not use unsecure channels. They did not wait for DC bureaucrats to declare something "classified."

Let's not get bogged down in the minutiae here. The clear issue, as Don notes, is that our senior military leadership used an insecure channel, probably to avoid accountability, to discuss matters where secrets getting out could get men and women killed. Anyone who didn't object to using this really ought to be disciplined, and Hegseth ought to lose his job over this.

I am no defender of Trump and am not going to start now, but don’t you think we should (1) know a bit more about this before passing judgment and (2) make fair comparisons?

I realize it isn’t the Christian way to withhold judgment in search of facts and information when you can trumpet about your moral superiority. And neither can you make political hay out of something by postponing a verdict while we wait for evidence.. But I think we probably should wait to find out what actually happened.

With respect to Clinton, I think it should be obvious that a one-time act (that may have been a mistake) is a lot different than a years long coordinated effort to hide what most likely was criminal activity.

The Clinton comparison would make sense if this Signal app communication had taken place over a period of years and if there had been a coordinated effort by the parties and by the lawyers to deny it and lie about it, to destroy phones and computers that had evidence of it, and to demand abnormal investigative tactics. All of those apparently happened with Clinton and it was confirmed by FBI Director Comey. None of that has been alleged with this instance as of yet.

Signal is, in fact, a very secure communication method. The problem as I see it, is using a non-authorized system for communication of secure info. (I don’t know if Signal was approved for government communications of this nature, but I doubt it.) Of course, the 2nd issue is that including a party (like someone from the press) not sworn to secrecy means that the communication itself being hacked is not the biggest problem. As Bert alluded to above with his WWII reference, the human factor is the weak link. “Loose lips sink ships.”

Of course, Signal can be used by anyone. I have a Signal account. Had the parties involved used a government communication method, inadvertently including someone not authorized for the communication would likely not have happened, since he wouldn’t have been cleared for use of it in the first place. This was clearly a stunning lapse that shouldn’t have happened. And yes, they need to get to the bottom of it to ensure it isn’t repeated. As Larry pointed out, a single instance like this is definitely not the same as the Clinton situation, but some policies will need to be put into place to prevent it in the future.

the government is not denying the facts as reported. That is not in dispute.

Both Vance and Hegseth at least were officers in the military. They have no excuse. They should know security protocols. Anyone else doing this would have been out the door so fast, their heads would still be spinning. But no, these are the Trump MAGA good guys so it was just a mistake, they’ve learned their lesson

Baloney

Signal is not a very secure communication method. You really need to understand cybersecurity. The algorithm that Signal uses may have a degree of security (but must be in context that both China and Russia are working very hard to break it). But the platform is weak, as shown by what just occurred. Using a publicly available product with no controls around access, is not a secure tool. Plain and simple. The encryption is only one part of a secure platform. Many, many companies, data, systems are compromised despite encryption techniques. Access controls is just as important if not more important than encryption. The fact that someone was able to add anyone to a private chat, shows the utter lack of access controls. The fact that it was not caught, shows an utter lack of security processes. The fact that Trump and Hegsworth gloss over it, shows a lack of leadership in this space. The fact that Trump and Hegsworth made it a central part of 2016, shows their lack of accountability.

Regarding platform vs. access, the training I receive each year from my tech employers clearly notes that the main way bad actors get access to confidential files is by tricking people, not by overcoming strong encryption. Not that they're negligent in working against the latter, but they know that the big way you get access is through people.

And if you're on a platform with civilians, you are going to have a rough time exluding them from your discussions, end of story. We need to see apologies at the very least, if not resignations, not personal attacks on the reporter. This is basic stuff.